


Mercy for a Dream

by HirenShei



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Conflicted Byleth, Feels, Fire Emblem: Three Houses Black Eagles Route, Gen, Inspired by Fanart, Post-Timeskip | War Phase (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-14
Updated: 2020-10-14
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:28:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27007354
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HirenShei/pseuds/HirenShei
Summary: In Derdriu Byleth must make a difficult decision. Does her love for El justify silencing her heart?---This work was inspired by this amazing drawing by u/Jasmineby65 on the r/FireEmblem subreddit!Click me!
Relationships: My Unit | Byleth & Claude von Riegan
Kudos: 12





	Mercy for a Dream

The question; "What do we do with Claude." still hung over her head like the blade of a guillotine, despite having received a clear answer from Edelgard. Or perhaps because of that.  
The streets of Derdriu were running red with blood, the blood of her protectors. Her blade, the ancient relic, was steeped in it from tip to hilt.  
Blood of people she had once taught clung to her hands and stone-of-a-heart, only to be joined by one more face as she saw Hilda fall before her. Her axe fell from her grip and hit the rocks. Blood welled from her lips as fear took the place of her courage.  
It was times like these when she watched another familiar face draw it's last breaths, that she wished she had never learned to feel at all.

"Professor-..." Hilda reached out to her. Weapon in hand, she knelt by her side. With the sound of magical explosions and the cries of war fading to the background, she listened to her last words.  
A desperate plea... to spare her superior from the wrath of the empire. On her dying breath, she smiled so radiantly, after Byleth told her all would be fine.  
The bloodshed would end. She heard herself promise. 

Thus, she watched Hilda pass away, amidst bloodied streets and the cries of war. 

Having made herself a liar, Byleth stood up and silenced her heart. Edelgard's words rung clear through her head.  
"Claude cannot be suffered to live."

The words weighed on her, and when they were first spoken, they threatened to cut off her breath.  
Claude. A brilliant student who had now become the leader of the Leicester alliance. And their enemy.

She broke free from the spell her guilt placed upon her and marched on. The battle was nearly won, and judging by the direction of the violence, she was needed at the docks.

"My professor." She looked up, finding Edelgard presiding over the battlefield from the balcony in front of the dockmaster's house. Amyr in hand. Through her oft stone-hewn facade, she spied worry.  
"I am fine." Her gaze was drawn to the docks. "Derdriu has but fallen for these stragglers."

"Yes, but be careful, my professor. The alliance leader leads them still." Edelgard frowned. "I know this is not easy for you. But I assure you-" A loud blast brought Edelgard's words to a halt. Looking up, they saw a massive bolt of magic had connected with a white wyvern and it's rider, sending them both flying. Following their trajectory, Byleth turned around.  
"Leave them to me." She watched them crash against a building several streets down. Before she knew it, she was running at full speed.  
She wanted this agony to end, already. Lest her stone-of-a-heart would grow any heavier. Lest the pain would overcome all else.

Lest she'd turn traitor and all of this suffering would have been for naught.

She found him, collapsed at the base of the building he had been thrown against. His wyvern had become entangled in washing lines and a canopy. Struggling, it lay on the street, wildly flapping with it's one free wing.

She braced herself, as much as she was able. But seeing him clutch a deep-red growing stain on his side forced her to halt her steps.  
She grabbed her dagger before forcing herself to move. For the worth of all the lives she had taken. For all the dreams she had dashed and the peace she had broken.  
For all her sins to be worth something- she had to do this...

But he deserved better than to be impaled by her blade whilst she couldn't even dare to face him.

So she sheathed her sword of the creator, and forced herself to look at him. Step by step, she forced herself closer, and when she finally managed to look him in the eyes.

... he was smiling. More genuinely than she had ever seen him smile.

Her stone-of-a-heart punished her. It tormented her with a pain so sharp, she was almost forced to her knees. Instead, she caught herself with one hand on the pavement before moving that last meter and coming face to face with him before her legs gave out. 

"You're crying." Claude reached out.  
Her reflexes made her hand grab his throat and raise her knife, only for her to then realize he had laid his hand on her cheek, to wipe the tears away.  
Tears... she was crying. 

His skin felt so warm under her touch. Warm and alive. As if frozen, she watched a rivulet of blood seeping from his lips, followed by a soft thud as his other arm fell in a pool of his own blood. Looking down, she saw the bloody stain on his side had grown. 

"Right until the very end, I've read this whole thing terribly wrong... All my hopes have fallen to ash..."  
When she met his eyes again her grip had begun to tremble.  
"It's all up to you now, teach... I really hope you do make the world...better..."

His dream, his hope. To unify two nations in peace. Was that truly something he deserved to die for? She wondered, but she tore herself away from that line of reasoning and pictured Edelgard's face. Her dream was what she had chosen to support.  
One mired in far more bloodshed than she had feared. In the end. Or was it even the end? Dimitri- the kingdom laid beyond Derdriu.  
No, there was no end to this bloodshed, nor of how her memories of happier times haunted her with faces of the students she had killed.

With each and every one of those faces, doubt had stirred in her stone-of-a-heart. It grew proportional to the size of the funeral pyre she left in her wake. And now Edelgard had asked her to add one more.  
For having a sharp mind and a dream of peace.

She bared her teeth in a snarl over her inner conflict, all the while watching her quarry's eyes focus on somewhere far-away. Proffering his apologies, and his farewell.

Torn in between what remained of her sense of righteousness and her love for El, she pressed her dagger to his throat, it's edge slipping his skin apart and beading up with red pearls of blood. Her chest heaved with pain. The pain cut through all the layers she had tried to smother her emotions with.

As much as she loved El. As much as she believed how necessary this war was- she couldn't make herself move that blade even a hair closer. Despite her trembling grip, she came to a heartwrenching conclusion, and not for the first time.  
But this was the first time she listened.

Inhaling deeply, she braced as she tore the blade away from his neck and planted it's hilt firmly in his hand, and covered it with her own. For a single, soul-crushing moment, her determination empowered her enough so she could look him in the eye, before thrusting the knife into her own abdomen.  
She saw the shock reach his eyes before doubling over and smacking her head straight into his shoulder before unleashing a harrowing scream.  
"Byleth-!" She still clung to his hand with the grip of a vice.  
Panting, she slowly let go and wrestled herself up with a shaking grip on his shoulder to look at him. 

She pulled him closer to whisper in his ear with a shaking voice;  
"Go-... " She labored to breathe as her warm blood poured out of her. "Run. Make your hopes and dreams-... come true." She gasped as she sagged forward and chafed her forehead against his armor whilst clutching her stomach and the knife planted within it.  
"Byleth-" He moved forward and she felt an arm support her back as he tried to flip her over. But being hurt himself this was no easy task. When she managed to focus her eyesight, she saw the worry on his face. The confusion, his fear, and also, deep down, his gratitude.  
"Go-" She mouthed. "El- will be here soon." She grunted as her sight began to fade. "N-north- head north- keep to the waterline" She struggled. Her hand still clung to his, soaked in the blood of them both.  
She saw him then, struggling. Fighting his own emotions, before his resolve finally manifested.

"Thank you. Byleth." He lifted her hand and kissed it. "I will return your kindness, I promise."  
He smiled. 

If that smile would be the last thing she'd see in her life, she would be content.


End file.
